Banding the Redskins 2009 Schedule

Crosscutting the data

Once again we break down the Redskins schedule, today we present schedule bands for the upcoming 2009 season, Curly R generally eschews specific predictions for final record, there is simply too much that is unknown at the outset of the season.

In addition, as prototyped by 2007's 2-0 > 3-3 > 0-4 > 4-0 roller coaster, we have determined that the media friendly four four-game schedule quarters breakdown is not adequate to assess the projected flow of the season, the games tend to fall into clusters, or bands, with more meaningful milestones for evaluating the team's performance.

Once we determined the bands, we evaluated each one with our best and most realistic guesses as to their outcome in each of three scenarios: overperform, solid perform, underperform. Note that the overperform does not necessarily mean undefeated and the underperform does not mean winless. We considered location of game, opponent and adjacent games on the schedule.

Based on our assessment, Curly R is predicting a Redskins final 2009 record between 5-11 and 12-4 with 9-7 as the solid performer:

Band	Games	Overperform	Solid Perform	Underperform
1	1. @ Giants 2. vs. Rams 3. @ Lions 4. vs. Buccaneers 5. @ Panthers	4-1	3-2	2-3
2	6. vs. Chiefs 7. vs. Eagles BYE 8. @ Falcons	3-0	2-1	1-2
3	9. vs. Broncos 10. @ Cowboys 11. @ Eagles 12. vs. Saints	2-2	2-2	1-3
4	13. @ Raiders 14. vs. Giants 15. vs. Cowboys 16. @ Chargers	3-1	2-2	1-3
	Season record	12-4	9-7	5-11

Band three is the top difficulty, then band one, band two and finally band four.

As we evaluated band one, all five games are NFC conference games, with comparatively higher playoff implications, both 2008-schedule finisher NFC non-guest games, St. Louis and Detroit, are in this band, as well as two of the four NFC South guest division games. St. Louis, Detroit and Washington all finished fourth (last) in their divisions last season, this is why these teams are on the 2009 schedule.

Band two is a sampler platter, including an AFC West guest division home game, an NFC Beast divisional home game and an NFC South guest division road game. The bye comes in band two.

Band three is two road NFC Beast division games wrapped by a flaky crust of two home guest division games, one AFC West and one NFC South.

Band four is the inverse beast, two AFC West guest division road games with a nougaty center of two NFC Beast home games.

Note also that each band contains two guest division games.

For these predictions we used a variety of research inputs, in no particular order:

1. Belief and expectations in the Redskins improvement for 2009;

2. Belief and expectations for improvement by each team on the schedule;

3. Location of each game;

4. Massey Ratings for the two guest divisions, the NFC South was rated four of eight and the AFC West was rated seven of eight. It should be noted the Massey Ratings once again have the NFC Beast rated as the top division in the NFL.


Previous Redskins schedule bands: 2008



Burroughs adding machine from here.